1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to printing from mobile devices in a printing environment and more specifically relates to methods and structure for simplifying the selection of a printing system for printing from a mobile device within a printing enterprise.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In large printing environments, a large number of printing devices/systems may be presented for use by a user of a client device (e.g., a personal computer or workstation). In such a traditional environment, the user sitting at his client device using an application program to generate a desired document selects a printer for printing his print job. Printer driver or other software in the client device may then format the print job for printing on the selected printing device/system. The driver or other software may present the user with a dialog box or screen allowing the user to select particular printer settings or print job setting to format the print job as he desires.
In an older, traditional printing environment, the user tends to be stationary at his client device (i.e., sitting at his desktop personal computer in his assigned cubicle or office). In such traditional environments, the printers available to a user may be predetermined based on the user's location in the enterprise. For example, printing systems on his floor or within his group of the enterprise may be the only printers readily available to a user, or the only printers that are convenient to access from the user's desk, or the printers with which the user is familiar, etc.
More recently, portable client devices have substantially gained in popularity. Portable or mobile client devices may include, for example, smart phones (including iPhones, Windows Mobile phones, DROID phones, etc.), personal digital assistants, net-book computers or other portable computer systems, etc. Such portable or mobile devices may be wirelessly coupled to the internal network (e.g., the intranet) as well as the environment outside the printing enterprise (e.g., through the Internet). Given this added mobility of the user and the client device, the traditional paradigm of pre-defining particular printers for use by a stationary user is cumbersome and inconvenient. Still further, most mobile devices lack the computational power to provide for rendering of documents to be printed on a printer wirelessly coupled to the mobile device. In fact, most present day mobile devices do not even include a printing subsystem or specific printer drivers in their operating software. Thus, a print server computing node may be required to provide the needed computational power for rendering the document to be printed. The mobile device may therefore be coupled with a print server for rendering the document to print. The print server may then be coupled with the printers of the enterprise to deliver the rendered documents to the printer.
One prior solution named “FollowMe”® printing (by Ringdale Inc. with information available at www.ringdale.com/followme) provides some added flexibility for the user of a workstation or personal computer (a client device). However, the “FollowMe” approach requires that the print server and the printer are within the same network (or at least can access one another through some network connection). The client device interacts with the print server to identify one or more documents to be printed. The user then logs onto the printer (using typical user credentials and authentication services of the enterprise) and the printer retrieves from the FollowMe remote print server the documents (rendered by the print server) identified by the user. Thus, the printer and the remote print server must be on the same network (or at least able to access one another) to allow the printer to retrieve the rendered document.
Though these prior solutions provide some added flexibility, they raise other problems. For example, the FollowMe approach requires that the enterprise include a print server computing node to receive print job requests from the client devices, to render the documents of the print job, and to transmit the rendered print job documents to the printer. However, if the enterprise does not include such a print server within its enterprise intranet (i.e., too costly in smaller print environments) then a print server external to the enterprise internal network may be required by the client device (i.e., a remote print server coupled with the client device through the Internet—e.g., a “cloud print server”). However, for security of the printing enterprise, the printers in the enterprise may not be accessible on the Internet thus raising additional problems and challenges for printing from client devices using a remote print server.
Thus, it is an ongoing challenge to improve the flexibility for use of printing systems in an enterprise by mobile users using mobile or portable client devices.